2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg has been given a reprimand following his incident with Sergio Perez in today’s second practice session.

Perez had to swerve to avoid Rosberg when he caught the Mercedes driver towards the end of a flying lap. Rosberg saw Perez was coming and began to move off-line at the same time Perez had already turned in the same direction to avoid the Mercedes.

The stewards rules Rosberg “slowed unnecessarily and recklessly in front of car 11 [Perez] between turns 13 and 14″ and handed him a reprimand, his first of the season.

Meanwhile Esteban Gutierrez was cleared of any infringement after the stewards investigated the Sauber driver for holding up Felipe Massa at the same point on the circuit.

“After hearing from the driver and reviewing the video evidence the stewards decided that the incident was not an impeding situation,” they ruled.

Penalties after a race and during a race but also for in a race given before the race.
Reprimands, of which you can ge three and get a 10 place grid penalty.
Penalty points, of which you can get 12 and get a race ban.

Oh, don’t say that. Reprimands are good and useful…for situations when you don’t want to penalized a pilot. If they only had penalties points or grid penalties, what would have happen to Nico?

Not been ironic now. I think that reprimands can be useful as there are lighter situations that don’t demand harsh penalties (like points or grid penalties). The interest is that the penalty has to be proportional to the fact. So, in that perspective, reprimands can be useful.